Latest / Saving the World From Bad Ideas / Bad Idea #44 "Vegi products are unhealthy’" with Nesli Sözer

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Bad Idea #44 "Vegi products are unhealthy’" with Nesli Sözer · Saving the World From Bad Ideas

0:00
UPFS as a whole is a bad idea and then categorizing foods
0:05
based on how they are processed is equally a bad idea.
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And maybe another bad idea is to focus on processing.
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Then we are talking about sustainable food system
0:17
challenge. We have a particular problem in
0:19
Europe at the moment where there's a legislative effort
0:23
fronted by an MEP called Selene Imat, who wants to ban the use
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of so-called meaty terms like burger and sausage.
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And literally the list is really long.
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I think it's if I call this also another bad idea, it's really a
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huge, huge mistake. So you're not trying to
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eliminate livestock completely from from farming?
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No, that's why I keep talking about diversification.
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Welcome to saving the world from bad ideas.
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I'm Mark Linus, and I've had a few bad ideas in my time.
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I used to go out in the night time to destroy GMO crops, and I
1:00
also opposed nuclear power. But then when I looked at the
1:02
science, I found I got it wrong. Oops.
1:05
I've learned the hard way that none of us are right all the
1:07
time. So now I'm here to challenge the
1:09
assumptions that we all too often take for granted because
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the future depends on us getting it right.
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Hello and welcome. Joining me today is Nesley
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Souza, a research professor at VTT Technical Research Center of
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Finland. And she does all sorts of things
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on plant based foods, microbial proteins, hybrid foods, and she
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could talk to us a lot about innovation and ultra processed
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foods, which I'm really looking forward to getting into.
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And firstly, Nancy, did I pronounce your name correctly?
1:37
Correct enough, Mark. This is as good as it's going to
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get from a British person. And you also established, and I
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just love this, this has got to be the best foodie acronym ever,
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The Nordic Alternative Protein Knowledge Innovation Network,
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AKA NAPKIN. So well done on that.
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How long did it take you to figure that one out?
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We start, we kicked it actually last year.
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It was a funding received by a Nordic council of ministries.
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It's a two year networking activity, but I'm sure we will
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not stop with the two year. There are a lot of activities
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going on in the Nordic space focusing on alternative
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proteins, especially Finland. We have been the hub for
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cellular agriculture advancements, so precision
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fermentation, biomass experimentation.
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We have 5 spin offs from VTT covering the alternative protein
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space. So yes, a lot is happening in
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the field. And not to mention Denmark is
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leading the funding space there. There's a lot of government
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pushed towards alternative proteins, which is a little bit
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interesting because we also know that meat industry is quite
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strong in Denmark, so. They are No, I I was
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appreciating your joke with napkin, with the acronym.
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So I was, I was, I want to, I wanted to give you full credit
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for coming up with the best acronym for you know what, what
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would otherwise be a boring sounding industry, public sector
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collaboration, but so well done on that.
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So we want to, I want to kick off the conversation by talking
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about Upfs, so-called ultra processed foods.
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And it's obviously, you know, it's interesting how food sort
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of issues go in hype cycles, don't they?
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You know, it's, it's protein one gear and it's Upfs the next and
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so on. And Upfs have been this huge
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issue in kind of consumer awareness since that publication
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of that book Ultra Process People, which I think really
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kicked it off. And this is classification
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system, which you can maybe talk us through, which I think they
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call the Nova classification. I have a lot, I mean, I'll say
3:32
at the outset, I have a lot of concerns about how unscientific
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this is. And, and I think you might share
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them. We, we talked about this a bit
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with Sarah Berry from, from Zoe, from a nutritional perspective,
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but I'd love to hear more from you about the, the, the, the
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actual processing side of it. You know, why, why processing is
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actually important, why it's done and what the health impacts
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may or may not be. So talk, just just refresh
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people's minds on what Upfs supposedly are.
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And then we can talk about processing in in the areas that
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you're actually working directly with.
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Maybe I don't give the definition of ultra processed
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foods because I don't believe that that that needed that kind
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of a definition. So, but I, I think what I would
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like to mention because there has been a lot of public
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attention discussions and also different countries, different
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governments have been taking also to say ultra processed
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foods. So basically this is coming from
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the work classification coined by a group of Brazilian
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scientists from more from the nutrition perspective and it is
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dividing the foods into four categories.
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So depending on the degree of processing.
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And to give a little bit of perspective and why it is so
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wrong, for example, a whole grain bread that is industrially
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produced is ultra processed food and it's not recommended.
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So also cheese is one of those heavily ultra processed foods
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that is also not recommended. All those canned foods and so on
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is going to under the processed food category.
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And we know that those processes are such including fermentation
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canned foods, they have been there.
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I mean we have been surviving with those foods because they
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make the foods more stable, they ensure the safety.
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So we definitely, we need processing and actually if you
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look at the, so to say, the scientific evidences behind
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these ultra processed foods, their interventions and so on,
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they are mainly those products. It's no brainer.
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Everyone will say that hey, look, this is not good for my
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health. Example, French fries.
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Should you consume apple juice or apples So or should you stay
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away from high sugar high fat products?
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Yes you should, but this has nothing to do with the degree of
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processing. So I take an example exclusion
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processing which is heavily utilized in the alternative food
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space. You can make by using exclusion
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processing a fantastic nutritionally high protein, high
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fiber food product. But then also depending on how
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you formulate, if you put there lots of saturated fatty acids
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like palm and others other saturated or lots of sugar.
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Of course in meat altered is you don't put sugar.
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But if you are talking about data alternatives, that's a
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common practice to must the must the flavor challenges or lots of
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salt, then obviously you make the product unhealthy.
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So by the end of the day, it's not really the processing, it's
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how you formulate the food product becomes important.
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Because in the end, all those, let's say advocates of ultra
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processed foods, the examples that are given is more focusing
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on the actually the nutritional quality, not so much on how they
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are made, how they are processed.
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Yeah, I think Sarah Berry had one exception to this.
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Obviously something which is, you know, the same, the same
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product like an apple processed into apple juice or something
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that might be nutritionally equivalent and it might have all
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the same chemistry essentially. But it's not quite the same
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because it's not, it's not, it's not the whole product.
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You're not chewing it. You're not, you know, consuming
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the whole thing. Whereas so, so I think the
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sugars are more available and so on.
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So there's that degree of processing.
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But other than that, it seems to be really about what's in the
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food rather than the process of getting.
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It right exactly. So of course with the with the
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apple case, that's the easy case.
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The apple juice is not compositionally the same than
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the apple. You are taking away the dietary
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fiber from that. So basically you are taking the
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sugar part of it. That's true.
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That's true. Maybe a better example would be
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apple, you know, a smoothie or something where you take the
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whole apple and you whiz it all up and you chop up all the skin
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so everything's exactly the same.
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But because you're not doing the, you know, you're not doing
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the processing in your body, you're doing it externally with
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the food processor. That does make a difference in
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terms of the nutritional availability of sugars and stuff
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like that. I think that's literally The
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only exception to this. And Mark, oftentimes you have to
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do that. I mean we cannot process it only
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with the enzymes that we have in the body and chewing not
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necessarily is good enough. So if we move to the alternative
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space, you have to process it in a way that you get rid of the
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anti nutritional factors, especially when we are talking
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about plant based products, they simple as legumes like fava
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beans, peas, they come with different anti nutritional
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factors that blocks the protein to be digested in our body.
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So in order to tackle those challenges and this is only the
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nutritional challenge. So there is also the techno
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functional challenges. I mean, of course, when we look
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at animal proteins, dairy proteins and meat proteins, they
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are heavily functional. There are those functionalities
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that it is extremely difficult to mimic with just milling,
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milling and mixing and blending. So there are by no means we can
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reach the same kind of solubility.
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Solubility forming properties are quite important when we are
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talking about food processing from a technology perspective
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and in order to get these alternative products function.
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By function I mean technological functionality.
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So how it operates in the industrial production and then
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the organ elliptic experience or the sensory piece of it and then
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also the nutrition, you have to process it.
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And yes, you have to heavily process it so that you get the
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similar kind of solubility or forming properties or gelling
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properties that you will achieve from the animal counterparts.
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And also the digestibility of these proteins are inferior
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compared to animal proteins. And this is oftentimes how
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especially the influencers come to the picture.
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Meat is good for you because it helps you build the muscles and
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so on so forth. Of course, if you start taking
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let's say a fibre bean powder without any processing, your
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body will not be able to use it because we are not designed for
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that. But if you process it and you
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fractionate it in a way that you get rid of the those techno
10:59
functional challenges and then improve the both the sensory and
11:03
nutritional function, then you will start to consume it.
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And also your body will be able to utilize it in a way that you
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get the most out of it, both the protein and then the dietary
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fiber component. Yeah, I, I bought an alternative
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steak in ALDI the other day. It was literally very fibrous.
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So it was, it was actually I guess process to to try to
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replicate some of the physical characteristics of a, of a meat
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steak. Of course it's, I'm sure it's
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all UPF top to bottom, but actually in terms of the
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healthiness of that versus a meat steak, I mean, they're
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nutritionally totally different anyway.
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But I think people have the idea that, and, and this is the big
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problem, if you want to as, as we do, reduce the amount of meat
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in people's diets and reduce the impacts of livestock on, on the
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environment and so on, we have to move to more plant based
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alternatives. And that means replicating or
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producing foods which have the all of the appeal of meat.
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And I'm a vegan wannabe, but I can't be vegan really because I
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just love meat too much. And so we've got sorry producer
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Rob who's laughing in the background, but you're, you're
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not vegan either for precisely the same reason.
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So, and in fact, we had Bruce Friedrich, who's authored this
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book from from Good Food Institute called Meat.
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And it's all about really how you can begin to substitute
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animal products in, in the food supply from plant based and also
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from cell cell based sources. But processing is essential.
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And you're, you're making this point really well.
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And I, but I'd like to hear a bit more about what the steps of
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processing are. They get you from a father bean
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or a soybean to that fibre steak type replica that I bought in
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ALDI. So the the basics first you have
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to separate the protein and the technology that is used to get
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that meaty like texture is extremely challenging because
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meat has this fantastic anisotropic structure that gives
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the unique texture. What does?
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That mean that was a long word I don't understand.
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It means that it's not a homogeneous texture.
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So there are the fibers are aligned in different directions.
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And actually when you are looking at the meat, by the way,
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I'm also a flexitarian. I also eat meat, but I eat it in
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modest amounts so that it's good for me and also good for the
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planet. So depending on also how you cut
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the meat, you get the different sensory experience.
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So to mimic that kind of structure is very challenging.
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One way of doing it is using extrusion technology and
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specifically high moisture extrusion technology where you
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can control the fiber alignment. I know there are also some sort
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of companies who have been using 3D footprinting, but with 3D
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footprinting it's difficult to get to the mass consumption.
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What does extrusion mean? You're literally pushing it
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through something with little holes and you're getting fibres
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out the other side. Is that sort of what that means?
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Yeah. So it is a high, sheer, high
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temperature process. It's actually a common process
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which is used also making off some of those puffed cereals,
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breakfast cereals, that's a little bit different, that's dry
14:20
extrusion. And dry extrusion is also
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utilized to make texturized vegetable proteins.
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So TVP's like those kind of soy grits which you can buy from the
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supermarket bring home, rehydrate and turn them into
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different kind of products also in your kitchen.
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But I believe the product that you have tasted was a high
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moisture extra that so if it was really like the the meat.
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Yeah, it was, it was wet. It was like you meant to be like
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able to slap it in a frying pan like an actual steak.
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Yeah, yeah. So it must be, it must be high
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moisture, extra extrusion, which is as I said, it's a high
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pressure, high temperature process where basically you feed
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the ingredients in flour form. And often times they are made
15:04
with either soy protein isolate, pea protein isolate mixed with
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different kind of ingredients to give the flavored juiciness and
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so on. And that is carried in a in a
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barrel where it is mixed and blended.
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And then in the end of the barrel there is a cooling unit
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where the proteins start to fibrillate like in the in the
15:28
meat. So you can think they're extrude
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extruder like a cow. Basically, instead of feeding
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grass, you are feeding the ingredients and then it's
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processed into into a meat like structure.
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And then of course these products are formulated into
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different kind of recipes. It can be turned into a burger,
15:52
Paddy or meatball like or sausages or like you said, you
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know, cut cut steak piece. And what are some of the
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techniques used to get the flavour right?
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Because obviously fava beans or any of these plant based sauces
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will have a different flavour profile to me.
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I know in possible foods in the US, which is still not available
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in Europe, it seems to be impossible to have impossible
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products in the EU uses heme, which is sort of gives the iron
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sort of blood taste. And that's that's one part of
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making a plant based alternative actually tastes more meaty.
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I mean, obviously we're talking within Europe here.
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What are the alternatives that can be used to give that kind of
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flavor profile to plant based products at the moment?
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Yeah. There are different approaches,
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obviously there are those flavors, ingredients that can be
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utilized, that's one thing. But maybe coming from processing
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perspective, I would be opting for more, let's say consumer
16:53
friendly approaches like I will now call in another processing
16:57
terminology, hybrid processing. So meaning that you can combine
17:04
different processing steps, especially with with extrusion,
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you'll get this nice meat like texture, but you don't
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necessarily heat to the flavor spot.
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So to be able to do that before you put there, let's say the P
17:19
protein isolate concentrate, you can apply a fermentation step.
17:24
Fermentation is an action technology which we know that it
17:28
is really has been utilized for centuries to bring also the
17:34
flavour there. I mean if you look at all those
17:36
fermented food products, they are very rich in flavour.
17:40
So by doing this you can bring the umami flavour which is
17:44
really the flavour that comes with the cooking of the meat.
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And in the end you can get also the clean label products so that
17:53
you don't need to put so much of those flavouring ingredients.
17:58
Yeah, I guess, I guess, sorry, it is, right.
17:59
I guess that's the difference between soy and miso paste.
18:02
I mean, that's a fermentation step, right, which gives a very
18:05
strong umami flavour, which is the basis to a lot of sort of
18:08
Chinese, Japanese cooking, right?
18:10
Yes, yes, exactly. Exactly.
18:13
And it's the and so that's the micro microbial component.
18:17
So the microbes are converting some of the components into
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something else. I mean what what?
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What exactly is happening there? So microbes are eating up the
18:27
carbohydrates there in the in the mix and then converting it
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into different kind of flavours. There can be also things which
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are good for your gut microbiota.
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So probiotic, probiotic effects are coming.
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And then by using this kind of an approach, oftentimes you are
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able to on depending on which kind of product you are
18:49
designing, you put less salt and less sugar because by getting
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more acidic flavor, you can reduce the amount of salt added
19:00
in the food product. So there are several advantages
19:04
and you can also utilize microorganisms to generate those
19:09
small molecular weight carbohydrates.
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I don't know if I'm going down. To yeah, that's good.
19:15
That's good. We like it.
19:18
So, so that because then we are talking about meat juiciness is
19:22
important, right? Yeah, love.
19:25
It juicy texture is important, so in order to kick the juicy
19:28
texture you can also utilize fermentation to generate in situ
19:34
some of those ingredients which will help the matrix to bind the
19:38
water and release it in a controlled way.
19:41
So just to kind of wrap up and the UPF part of our conversation
19:46
and I suppose this is where we should introduce the the bad
19:48
idea. I mean, Upfs, I think you would
19:50
just be, you know, we're, you're saving the world.
19:52
We're all saving the world from bad ideas here.
19:54
That's the theme of the podcast. And are you happy just to say
19:58
UPFS as a whole is a bad idea? Upfs as a whole is a bad idea,
20:03
and categorizing foods based on how they are processed is
20:08
equally a bad idea. And maybe another bad idea is to
20:14
focusing or wrong idea is to focus on processing, then we are
20:19
talking about sustainable food system challenge.
20:22
I mean, it is. It is much, much more than that.
20:28
And why does this matter if if consumers concerns about UPFS
20:31
mean that people avoid plant based alternatives to meat?
20:33
I mean, what what does the impact of that both on, I guess
20:37
health outcomes and also on, you know, sustainability issues?
20:41
Yeah, well, if what is the opposite of ultra processed
20:45
food, it's natural, right? Yes.
20:48
So if I give you the I mean, what is what is very wrong here?
20:52
If you take the example meat, plant based meat burger, OK,
20:59
what is the counterpart of it meat.
21:03
With the plant based burger you get the right amount of protein
21:07
because by blending different plant based proteins because
21:10
often times the nutrition say oh it is not, it doesn't have
21:14
complete amino acid profile, it doesn't have the same
21:18
digestibility as the as the meat, it doesn't have the iron.
21:22
So what will happen to the iron intake?
21:26
But with the right formulation and using the right processing?
21:29
I gave you the example combining fermentation with extrusion, you
21:34
can get the same texture, even superior nutritional composition
21:39
than me test. But when you look at the list of
21:43
the ingredients in a plant based burger and then the way that it
21:48
is processed, the processing steps, obviously it looks under
21:53
the eyes of the general consumer that meat is good for me.
21:58
And but this plant based alternative and on top of that,
22:02
the plant based alternative is more expensive than the meat.
22:05
And this is true in most of the EU countries, not necessarily
22:09
can be extrapolated to, to other parts, but it's very wrong to
22:15
think what's the cost of the meat production to the world and
22:20
then I mean to the planet and also to our health.
22:24
So when you do that, Matt, you can never get from a meat
22:28
product and a station. I'm focusing on on red meat
22:31
here. A major hurdle that we have is
22:34
the dietary fiber, for example, we are over consuming the
22:38
protein. And this is actually the, the,
22:41
the key problem when you look at the European diet or the Western
22:46
diet, we over consume proteins. We take too much of proteins
22:52
than we need. And although there are lots of
22:55
again, clinical studies done how dietary fiber is connected to
23:00
several diseases, it has direct connection to, to certain cancer
23:05
types. Still we are consuming the
23:07
dietary fiber. So by using more plant based
23:10
foods and those plant based veggies and plant plant based
23:15
veggie veggie burgers, you can also bring the dietary fibre to
23:19
your diet. Yeah, I've heard this now from
23:21
literally everyone I've talked about this issue.
23:23
Experts seem absolutely in, in, in unison.
23:28
And and there's a, you know, there's a strong consensus,
23:30
isn't there, that it's not protein, that we lack it,
23:32
despite everyone's obsession with protein.
23:33
It's, it's fibre and you've got you get fiber implant based
23:36
alternative. Well, you do not get fiber and
23:38
red meat. And that's, that's absolutely
23:40
critical for all of these things because gut health and as you
23:43
say, cancers and even things like Parkinson's potentially
23:46
have a link to, to gut health and fiber is very important in
23:50
that, right. So the fiber aspect is one
23:53
thing. What about the rest of what's in
23:56
plant based alternatives? I mean do they have to add in
23:59
the iron that would be in meat or other missing nutrients or is
24:03
it a case of you have to get the stuff elsewhere in your diet?
24:05
You can add the iron there as a as a supplement, but then comes
24:11
also the beauty of combining cellular agriculture ingredients
24:15
with plant based so especially biomass such as mycoprotein or
24:22
single cell proteins. They are quite high in calcium,
24:26
magnesium, zinc, iron. So without even heading you know
24:33
in the recipe to iron by combining single cell proteins
24:37
with plant based ingredients, plant based proteins, you can
24:42
take the box of protein, complete protein profile.
24:46
Then also you can bring in all sorts of micronutrients there,
24:51
including also the umami flavor. We have a particular problem in
24:54
Europe at the moment where there's a legislative effort
24:58
fronted by an MEP called Celine Imart who wants to ban the use
25:05
of so-called meaty terms like burger and sausage.
25:08
And literally the list is really long.
25:09
It includes veal sausage, sorry, veal chicken, you know, pork.
25:13
So literally everything you can think of that would that wooden
25:16
is being used to help consumers understand what these plant
25:21
based products are meant to be is going to be banned in the
25:24
European Union. What do you think about that?
25:26
I think it's if I, if I call this also another bad idea,
25:32
it's, it's, it's really a huge, huge mistake.
25:36
Of course, being, being a professor, I have been involved
25:39
or leading different projects. These, these have been also
25:44
partially funded by the EU. So these are large EU funded
25:48
projects or Nordic funded projects.
25:51
And we have been doing consumer, consumer studies here, Europe
25:56
and beyond. And it is very clear that when
26:00
we are making these alternative products and by the way, I
26:03
personally also hate the term alternative because alternative
26:07
feeling that OK alternative not feeling very I think.
26:13
No, I hear you. What's your alternative to
26:15
alternative then? That's I, I think we don't need
26:19
to say alternative to we just, I give this example.
26:24
If you look at Thalafel, it's an alternative to a meatball, but
26:29
nobody thinks when they're eating falafel.
26:32
Oh, we are meeting my alternative plant based meatball
26:36
now. Maybe that's because it's a
26:38
traditional product made out of what is it, lentils and stuff.
26:41
So, but maybe we need new names then maybe the EU is going to
26:44
ban all of these. Meat and I think we should focus
26:46
on the marketing strategies with this plant based foods or why
26:50
don't we say plant based foods? Do we need to say plant based
26:54
alternatives? It's simply plant based foods.
26:57
So what? So in this consumer, consumer
27:00
studies, what we have found that it is important for the consumer
27:04
to know when it's a new product to associate how will I use
27:09
this? So by using this veggie sausage,
27:13
veggie burger, you give the hint to the consumer that you will
27:17
use this similar to a burger, similar to a sausage.
27:23
So I think in that sense it's, it's quite important to keep the
27:30
terminology the same. However, there are some parts
27:34
that I kind of tend to understand, especially with milk
27:40
products and milk alternatives. That has been a little bit
27:46
misleading as well. Labeling something like soy milk
27:50
or oat milk, then a oat drink, you know, it is labeled as oat
27:54
drink or soy drink, especially in Europe, but elsewhere it's
27:58
called a soy milk or oat milk. And oftentimes those products
28:03
are by no means close to animal milk by composition.
28:07
So they have oftentimes less than 1% protein.
28:10
There are some products in the market that are even performing
28:14
higher with higher protein, some contents than than let's say
28:18
cow's milk, but majority have less than 1% protein.
28:23
So in that sense I understand. But especially with the meat
28:26
products, how would you know if you have a, let's say a sausage
28:31
type of product, how would you call it cylinder?
28:34
Yeah, cylinder and tube and things.
28:37
Like. That yeah, I mean, I find the
28:40
milk thing irritating as well. I still determinedly call it oat
28:44
milk. And when I put it in coffee or
28:46
when I ask for it in Cafe or something, even even if the EU
28:49
doesn't has banned it as such. I mean, I just don't it's, it's
28:52
white liquid you put in coffee or tea, I mean, or on your
28:55
cereal or something. Of course it's milk.
28:57
I mean, so that I just find that annoying.
28:59
And also, I find it annoying that Europe funds amazing work
29:02
like you're doing and puts 10s of millions into all of this,
29:06
you know, amazing innovation in the food sector, while at the
29:09
same time having these incredibly burdensome regulate
29:13
regulations, which mean it can almost there's, there's there's
29:16
very little chance of it reaching the market, which must
29:18
then have a chilling effect kind of upstream to to the academics
29:22
and the food innovators who are actually working on this.
29:24
So how, like, how can Europe improve?
29:28
And I don't just want to talk about Europe, by the way, we
29:29
have a worldwide audience for this podcast.
29:31
But I mean, in fact, you could even help us by comparing
29:34
different geographies and what the different regulatory
29:36
approaches are in different parts of the world.
29:39
But it seems you're based in Europe.
29:40
And a lot of the companies that I've had experience over there
29:43
and you can go and try their products, you know, when you go
29:47
and visit them. But the chances on coming to
29:49
market anytime soon seem to be very low indeed.
29:52
Yes, in in fact the geography and then the challenges of the
29:56
geography is very much dictated also the consumers attitudes to
30:01
this more innovative food products.
30:03
Two years ago, I was in Singapore and the attitudes of
30:08
Singaporeans towards these innovative food products are
30:12
totally different than how it is in Europe.
30:15
Because as many know, Singapore is almost fully dependent when
30:22
it comes to food production and they have experienced a lot of
30:26
challenges during the COVID times when almost all logistics
30:31
has stopped or slowed down dramatically.
30:34
So this kind of new technologies, especially
30:37
cellular agriculture is advancing quite faster and also
30:42
the regulatory is much more easier and then you hardly have
30:47
anything to eat. Then the consumers attitudes
30:51
also changes towards these kind of new innovations.
30:55
What's different about Singapore's approach and
30:57
Europe's approach? And that means nothing's on the
30:59
market in Europe. And actually there are even
31:01
cultured meat products on the market now in Singapore.
31:04
Like what? How come these are so different
31:07
outcomes? Well, the cultured meat products
31:10
in Singapore, they are basically mixed with plant based.
31:13
So I think the impossible example which you gave earlier
31:18
is, is also good and that, you know, the cellular agriculture,
31:22
cultured meat has its own challenges with scaling up
31:25
infrastructure like, and in order to also advance these new
31:30
innovative technologies, it's quite critical to plant those
31:36
with plant based ingredients which are in more abundant
31:40
amounts. But then it has also, I have
31:43
been talking about this, you know, sensory challenges and and
31:47
technological challenges. So by combining with animal
31:51
cells, I mean cultured meat or by combining these with other
31:56
precision fermentation ingredients you can the
32:00
scalability and cost challenges, but then also increase the
32:06
uptake of the plant based foods where the maybe the sensory
32:10
properties are not that right at the moment.
32:14
I was, I don't know, I was disappointed to hear that the
32:17
cultured meat that's on the market in Singapore and one is
32:19
rather places actually is about 90% plant.
32:23
I assume that they will make actually growing muscle fibers
32:25
and you know, it was actually a piece of chicken breast cut into
32:29
bits of chicken nugget or something, but apparently that's
32:31
not the case at all. There's some.
32:33
Tell us a bit more about this. So there's some animal cells
32:35
which are sort of brought into the kind of plant mix, is that
32:38
right? Well, I'm not really the expert
32:41
in that field, but what I know is that this applies to all
32:46
fermentation or majority of the fermentation made ingredients.
32:50
Now scalability is a is a big, big challenge and lack of
32:54
infrastructure and animal cells are a little bit more
32:58
challenging. They don't proliferate as fast
33:02
As for example if lamentous fungi or bacteria grows up.
33:08
So that also brings the challenges in terms of
33:11
scalability. So they grow much slowly than
33:15
than a bacteria or if lamentous fungi which is used to produce
33:20
single cell proteins. OK.
33:23
I mean, the ones that proliferate are probably, yeah,
33:26
you know, cancerous or something.
33:28
You know, a lot of cancer cells in the bad while I was talking
33:31
about, I don't even know what I should say this about it being
33:33
cancer cells. That would be.
33:35
Yeah. Are they saying that?
33:37
I mean, it's literally the animal cells that would
33:39
proliferate really quickly would be kind of cancer cells.
33:41
So like, here's a tumor burger. I mean, it doesn't sound very
33:43
nice, does it? That's exactly the phrase of
33:46
meet meetings is using to oppose it, says producer Rob.
33:49
That's the. Terminology that's used but I I
33:52
have noticed it well I look at your face okay now it
33:55
immediately blink the cancer. Well, it's sort of the obvious
33:59
jump, isn't it? But I mean, if you want animal
34:00
cells to proliferate hugely in a VAT, I mean, I mean, you
34:03
shouldn't, you shouldn't care. I mean, it's just cell and
34:05
you're going to digest it and so on.
34:06
But perceptions are everything in this in the food game as as
34:09
of course, you know, and all people who work in the sector
34:12
know, particularly those who are consumer facing.
34:15
And we've seen the same, the same stuff with with GMOs.
34:17
I mean, if you put AI don't know a scorpion gene in your corn and
34:21
now everyone's going to go, yeah, that's disgusting.
34:23
You know, it might, it's just a sequence of DNA that we may have
34:25
in multiple other organisms. But it's so so you've got to
34:29
somehow make sure that at the absolute outset when you're
34:32
innovating this, you're not going to trigger a yuck response
34:36
which is going to make it completely unusable.
34:39
Yeah. And now that you mentioned the
34:41
GMO, that's another question which we get a lot.
34:45
You know, the research area that our focus is focusing on is
34:48
looking into industrial biotechnology and food.
34:51
And we have from from VTT, the organization that I come from,
34:57
we have a lot of nice and successful spinouts and some of
35:02
those are focusing on precision fermentation.
35:05
And of course in precision fermentation, you have to modify
35:10
the Organism so that you get the right protein expressed in the
35:15
Organism. But this doesn't mean that you
35:18
are applying an extraction to get that specific protein out
35:22
from the fermentation brought. So you are not getting any
35:26
genetically modified Organism into the end product.
35:31
And this has been a little bit, you know, difficult to explain,
35:36
but we are continuously repeating ourselves that, hey,
35:40
look, when you are making an egg protein, it's biologically
35:44
identical to the egg protein that you are consuming.
35:49
And it, it is much more safely produced because we have, again,
35:53
the egg prices have gone crazy. And you need this kind of new
35:58
and stable production technologies.
36:02
And in order to do that, you cannot just feed sugars to the
36:05
microorganisms and hope that they will one of a sudden start
36:09
making egg protein. So you have to teach, educate
36:13
the microorganism to be able to produce the right egg protein.
36:18
So and in order to do that you have to do some some
36:22
modifications. But basically in the end you are
36:26
not getting that part into the ingredient, into the egg protein
36:30
ingredients. So you are getting just a pure
36:33
ingredient. So this is I think when I look
36:37
at all those projects that we have had focusing on consumer
36:42
part, I think we need now to focus on the marketing side.
36:48
So now we understand the consumers attitudes, preferences
36:54
and feelings about these new products.
36:57
I think now we have to focus from a research perspective, how
37:02
do we increase the the uptake of these products by focusing on
37:07
marketing and and branding. Well, I think they'll probably
37:11
market themselves if they taste really good and they're also
37:15
affordable at the moment with plant based.
37:18
I mean, certainly this is my experience in the UK, you have
37:21
products that taste nothing like me and are twice as twice as
37:24
expensive often. And you know, why, why would you
37:27
buy them? So that's obviously a huge
37:29
hurdle. And is that obviously some of
37:32
that scientific that there's still, you know, innovation that
37:35
needs to be done to get the products to a kind of comparable
37:39
flavor profile or better potentially you can invent
37:42
something which tastes even nicer than me.
37:43
I don't know. But there's that.
37:45
And is the price differential, I mean, are these companies just
37:48
making tons of profit because all they're putting in is a few
37:50
soybeans and, you know, and off and extruding it and you get
37:54
your plant burger and like, why is that twice the price of a cow
37:58
burger? Actually majority of those
38:00
relatively expensive products they are using pea protein.
38:05
So soy is not is not that expensive and another very
38:11
fantastic protein, which probably those who are listening
38:14
some of those might be disagreeing with me, but I'm a
38:17
hey, I'm a technologist is wheat gluten.
38:21
It's a fantastic protein from a technology.
38:23
Perspective. Say that again.
38:25
It's wheat, wheat gluten. So it's it's gluten, which is a
38:28
major protein in in cereal. Yes, yes, now you mention it, I
38:32
looked at the ingredient list of that steak thing I brought from
38:35
Aldine. It was mostly wheat protein, so
38:36
it would have been a gluten burger thing.
38:38
Yes, your gluten. Very nice.
38:41
Cherry texture, so it's. A fantastic.
38:43
Protein and and for among the plant based proteins, these are
38:49
the stars soy and wheat. But you know, soy and wheat has
38:55
it's also own challenges. So especially with with soy
39:00
consumers think that OK, this is genetically modified.
39:03
So I want to stay away from the soy.
39:06
And then soy is still not so European crop.
39:11
And then with wheat, there is all sorts of again bad ideas
39:15
running around the wheat like the bulletin belly and so on,
39:19
which probably needs a separate, separate discussion.
39:23
But it has been also hammering the interest towards these kind
39:27
of fantastic and more affordable products.
39:30
So when you switch to pea protein and fopper beans and
39:34
chickpeas and lentils which are still if you look at the global
39:39
production of of those, they are minor crops.
39:43
So there is the cost factor coming already from the raw
39:46
material side. So how can we reduce the
39:49
product, the production costs there?
39:51
Obviously if you focus more on the concentrates then isolates
39:57
that reduces the cost and then maybe coupling it with as I
40:02
said, fermentation technologies so that you don't need to pay so
40:07
much for the flavour ingredients or then the flavour blends in
40:11
your in your food design. So there are ways to ways to
40:15
handle it. You mentioned, so you mentioned
40:17
the gluten thing. I do want to just dive into that
40:20
just just briefly if we can, because it is important if we
40:23
can't use wheat protein because so many people think they have
40:28
problems with gluten. Obviously there's a dimension of
40:31
this which is absolutely real for celiacs, right?
40:33
People who suffer from bona fide gluten intolerance like, but
40:37
this whole kind of gluten free things feels to me like another
40:41
fad. I mean, how much of it's real
40:42
and what are the what are the issues here?
40:45
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean as you said, if we put
40:48
the celiacs aside and of course there are those people who are
40:53
not diagnosed to be celiacs who are gluten sensitive.
40:57
So we also put them aside. Majority of this discussions is
41:02
coming. It gives you bloating, weight
41:05
gain and and so on so forth. But if I can boldly say where
41:11
you are getting gluten most is those are those kind of products
41:17
which are high in carbohydrates, right, Bakery products, Sherry
41:21
products. So basically you are just
41:25
consuming together with the gulutin, carbohydrates and fat a
41:30
lot. Of sugar.
41:31
Yeah, a lot of sugar and. Sugar, so you are gaining no
41:34
wonder belly your belly fat is increasing because of that, not
41:39
because of the one particular protein in it.
41:42
Again, I'm talking about not the people, not not the celiacs or
41:47
then sensitive people to gluten, but.
41:51
What? What proportion of the
41:52
population? I'm not.
41:53
You don't have to give me an exact number because I know this
41:55
isn't what you work on, but roughly what proportion of the
41:58
Population Act is is bona fide sensitive to gluten?
42:02
Really I don't, I don't know, but it's a very, very small
42:05
fraction and it depends a lot on the geography.
42:09
So you know, some of those I think there is, there might be
42:12
even some genetical factors behind it because some regions
42:16
the incidence is higher than elsewhere.
42:19
So. But I would lactose intolerance
42:21
because I think it's higher in Asia, isn't it?
42:23
So there are there are genetic differences in human
42:25
populations, aren't there in terms of sensitivity to
42:27
different to different nutrients.
42:30
But I want to I want to just look back again at the bigger
42:33
picture. What what how important is it
42:36
that we move away from such meat heavy diets and replace them
42:42
with plant based microbial, whatever they're different and
42:45
not allowed to say alternatives, but whatever the non alternative
42:49
alternatives are that we could, you know, rapidly upscale.
42:52
Like, I mean, is, is the main issue for you and why you work
42:56
in this? Is it sustainability?
42:58
Is it is it health? Is it because you care about
42:59
animal welfare? I mean, is it a mix of all three
43:02
of them or what? I think all of that, so my my
43:08
research focused on sustainable food system challenge and it
43:12
crosses from human health, animal welfare, planetary
43:16
boundaries. And what we are doing wrong is I
43:23
mean, our diet is wrong. So we are heavily relying on
43:27
animal based products, both protein perspective, but also
43:31
from fat perspective. Fat is, although fat alerts
43:35
people, fat is bad for me, fat is quite important for us.
43:39
It's our major energy source and it's very important for our
43:42
cognitive skills. And even that relies heavily on
43:48
animal based production systems. So what I believe is that
43:54
diversification is important. So that's what we are trying to
43:58
get into the picture now. And when you consume more of the
44:03
plant based foods, of course you get not only the benefit to the
44:08
health and nutrition but also you get the sustainability
44:13
benefits. So maybe I don't want to frame
44:16
my research only within the plant based, but plant based
44:20
fermentation made, ingredients with fermentation made.
44:24
I'm referring to precision fermentation, biomass
44:27
fermentation, but also traditional fermentation which
44:30
has been used in centuries. So the key thing that if you
44:35
would like to we have a future for the coming generations, I
44:42
think the most important is that we focus more on
44:44
diversification. So clearly we must reduce the
44:48
animal based food production, increase all these, so to say,
44:53
alternatives in our diet. And, and what, what, what has
44:57
this got to offer to, to farmers?
44:58
Because a lot of the opposition, certainly this meaty labels
45:02
nonsense that's happening in the EU seems to be driven by the,
45:06
you know, the livestock meat and livestock lobby.
45:09
But but surely there are opportunities for farmers in in,
45:12
in this sort of new, new sector, right?
45:14
Exactly, exactly. I'm happy that that you brought
45:17
up the farmers, especially when we are talking about not maybe
45:21
the plant base, but when we are talking about cellular
45:24
agriculture. The number one question, what
45:27
will happen to the farmer? This will open up new practices,
45:31
new opportunities for the farmer.
45:33
Basically, microbes can eat whatever you give to them.
45:36
So imagine all that lost during their primary production.
45:41
They can convert it as feedstocks for fermentation.
45:45
I keep saying that the next war will be on sugar.
45:48
We are seeing it already happening and all these issue
45:52
made production needs sugar and there are different sources
45:57
where we can get the sugar that is needed to feed to the
46:01
microorganisms and we are losing a lot of food in the farming
46:07
land so that can be utilized and we can also utilize the cellular
46:12
agriculture to produce biofertilizer.
46:15
So this is another you know benefit benefit for the farmers.
46:19
So there can be really tremendous opportunities for the
46:22
primary production side as well. So you're not trying to
46:26
eliminate livestock completely from from?
46:28
Farming, that's why I keep talking about diversification
46:33
and couple of years ago, together with with EIT food
46:36
protein Tink tank, we have made a, a policy paper that has been
46:43
precisely focusing on this domain.
46:45
So really protein diversification is the key.
46:48
Again, this is this is European context, but I think this
46:52
applies to to the entire world. We have to diversify our protein
46:58
sources. And maybe if I say not only
47:01
protein source, but food sources.
47:03
So it has to be diversified, not relying on monocultures.
47:08
If you look at plant based, that's also a a major problem.
47:11
We rely on wheat, corn, soy, but there are, there are and rice.
47:16
There are more crops than those. Yeah, so food system resilience
47:20
as well is important for diversification as well, right.
47:23
I mean if. Exactly.
47:24
Shops, wars, tariffs, who knows what you know, a lot of lot of
47:28
countries are very dependent on imports and would like to be
47:31
less exposed to to world markets in in food and you know, price
47:36
fluctuations and things. And having so this does actually
47:38
allow to potentially to produce a lot more of at least your
47:42
protein and your fats and some really key parts of your food
47:44
supply domestically, right? Yes, yes.
47:47
And, and we have been experiencing this a lot again,
47:52
again in, in Europe that I mean, everyone is following the stress
47:57
in, in Europe or so the Russian invasion to Ukraine has hit a
48:02
lot the wheat, but then also sunflower.
48:05
Sunflower maybe not in the in the region that I am in, in the
48:09
Nordics, that's not an important oil seed, but as very it is, it
48:14
is important. And it's also one of the protein
48:16
sources, sunflower protein. So that has been hit hard wheat,
48:20
yes, but then also the climate change, it affects all the all
48:25
the logistics when we are looking at this four major
48:28
crops. I think it was last last year or
48:31
the year before, probably last year there has been this heat
48:35
wave in in India which has affected the wheat production.
48:39
And then also similarly we have seen fluctuations in rice.
48:43
So definitely we have, I mean we, we have much more
48:48
possibilities in front of us. But for a reason we have been
48:53
putting in Europe, we put all our efforts in wheat and in, in
48:58
US it has been on, on corn and soy.
49:03
So I think and, and in China and in other Asian countries it has
49:07
been mainly on rice. But there are definitely a lot
49:12
of opportunities there like fopper beans, peas and lentils
49:16
and and and many more. Also the African crops.
49:21
That's also quite interesting that that focus on generating
49:25
economical value also for that part of the world.
49:28
Yeah. So you're looking at making food
49:30
and the food system more sustainable, more resilient and
49:34
more healthy and hopefully more affordable.
49:37
I mean, that's what's what's not to like.
49:39
Tell me just finally, what are some of the products?
49:43
I know you talked about spin offs from the academic sort of
49:46
upstream work you've been doing, you know, with the collaboration
49:50
and the napkin I want to go back to because it's just too good.
49:53
But yeah, so tell us about some of the spin offs and some of the
49:56
things which are maybe already on the market or about to be on
49:59
the market from from the research that you've been
50:01
involved with? Well, we have been focusing a
50:04
lot on fermentation made ingredients.
50:06
So we have solar foods, which is produce producing a single cell
50:11
protein, bacterial single cell protein that is made by using
50:15
gas fermentation and that has been already approved in
50:20
Singapore and got also the safe to consume green light from from
50:25
US still in the process of of getting the FSAI approval in
50:31
Europe. And they have been also scaled
50:34
scaling up the the production. Then we have a microprotein spin
50:39
off, which is now building its first large scale factory in
50:43
Finland. Then we had Waller, it's also
50:46
building now the the first factory again in Finland and
50:50
that's focusing on insect proteins for feed, but also for
50:56
food. And we have one eco bio that's
50:59
now making its first factory in US and that's focusing on
51:05
production of egg, egg protein without the eggs.
51:09
And we have a very recent one. Actually we have two recent
51:14
ones. One is the HEPA plant protein
51:16
and that's exactly focusing on minimally processed by using
51:22
different kind of plant based. So you put the whole flour and
51:27
then in the end you get two different fractions after
51:30
exclusion processing which are highly functional.
51:33
So a protein rich fraction and the such refraction in a single
51:37
step. And then we have now that is
51:40
focusing on use of plant cells for production of, for example,
51:46
avocados in Finland. And there has been also all
51:50
sorts of what? This is like a wait, wait, wait.
51:53
This is like a cell. Cultured avocado.
51:55
Yes, cell cultured avocado. Wow, that has blown my mind.
52:02
In Finland. In like -30.
52:04
Degrees temperature outside or something?
52:06
OK, exactly, exactly. Well, I don't know how to write
52:11
any of those names. Of things but we'll try and put
52:13
them in the show notes I'm sure producer Rob we can we can do
52:15
that yes great. So I just, yeah, the fact that
52:20
one of them is minimally processed is, is, is is good at
52:23
least I think you've got to pick your battles, haven't you?
52:25
I mean, the scientific community kind of lost the battle on GMOs
52:28
as we're still, and we're still seeing the legacy of that all
52:31
the time in the work that you're doing.
52:32
You might end up losing, losing the battle on UPFS, but I don't
52:35
think it's got, it's got quite got there yet.
52:37
I saw just before we came on air, as they say, Oatley has
52:40
announced that they're going to fight back and actually explain
52:44
what why processing is important in the production of their oat
52:47
milk, not drink. And and they'll put that on the
52:50
side of their carton. So there are, you know, this
52:53
kind of messaging, this kind of communication, I think is
52:55
important. These fads do blow over.
52:57
And it's important to explain, you know, there's an opportunity
52:59
to explain to people also why, why food is produced in a
53:03
certain way and, and what the benefits are.
53:05
I mean, you see the same sort of things on like the pesticides.
53:08
You know, people think pesticides are just bad and
53:10
farmers are doing it because they're evil and they just want
53:12
to poison all the insects and the birds.
53:14
But the fact that pesticides are there to protect the crop and to
53:16
give, you know, much higher production which would otherwise
53:18
be destroyed in the field by pests is, you know, gets lost in
53:23
the, you know, in, in the kind of lost in translation, as it
53:26
were. So good luck in, in fighting the
53:29
bad idea of, of UPFS and good luck also in the the work that
53:34
you're doing with all of these fantastic innovations.
53:36
And I look forward to trying some of them on my dinner plate
53:38
soon. So thanks Nesley, it's been
53:40
fantastic talking to you. Thank you very much, Mark.
53:43
Same here. It was great to talk with you.
53:48
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53:51
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